Over the Garden Wall: Greg (ENFP)

If you’ve been following us for long, you may have noticed that we previously published Greg from Over the Garden Wall as something other than an ENFP. Well, in hindsight, we realized that we were wrong. So, here’s our correction to that original article, reassessing Greg from Over the Garden Wall as an ENFP. In the past, we also typed Over the Garden Wall: Beatrice (INTJ) and Over the Garden Wall: Wirt (INFP) if you’re interested in checking out those.

Ne:

“So my theory is hot dogs are not actually dogs, regardless of what they teach you in school.”

“But anything is possible if you set your mind to it, right?”

Greg is energetic, optimistic, excitable, and creative. He is clearly very impulsive, and loves exploring new places. This is demonstrated over and over again in the series by the many times he runs off to explore something that he sees or hears. He never tries to control his brother, and for the most part, just goes along with whatever Wirt says. All of this generally suggests that he is an extraverted perceiving dominant.

Throughout the show, Greg is constantly making up songs (like the song about Adelaide) and tries to get them all to sing with him. He is occasionally shown spouting a random theory, like about hot dogs, or making up random facts, like the one about the dinosaur ear. Greg spends the entire series naming and renaming his pet frog, never able to decide on just one name. He is a bit scattered, and prone to losing that frog. He tends to run off the moment he gets an idea in his head, and gets excited whenever Wirt has a plan. (Of course, he can’t always execute any such plan precisely.) Greg himself never really makes any plans unless he absolutely has to.

Fi:

“I just wanted to have fun, change the world and make it a better place.”

Greg readily expresses himself in the form of his ideas and wild theories. This is not something he struggles with or hesitates to do. We initially, mistakenly, typed Greg as an ENTP, but one thing that made us realize our error in this has to do with Greg’s ideas. The tendency to generate fantastical ideas or theories that have little basis in reality is actually more common for Ne in conjunction with Fi. (Both sensing and thinking grounds someone into reality.) In general, Greg marches to the beat of his own drum, which can make him difficult to reign in.

Greg is young, which can make proving his type a bit more difficult. For instance, idealism and naivety is often associated with NFPs. However, Greg is a child, and many children are that way. However, we don’t see any significant signs of Grey trying to logically understand what’s going on around him. He’s more interested in living in his own world of ideas, and appreciating the novelty of his surroundings.

Te:

“That’s ’cause it’s not true. It’s a rock fact!”

Greg asserts his ideas or theories, in spite of the lack of validity they have. In many instances, he’s actually well aware that his random facts are not actually true. He doesn’t care though, which points to him have a low thinking function. His desire to specifically proclaim that as facts indicates Te.

Greg’s relationship with plans demonstrates another aspect of his Te. Greg struggles to stick with plans, which ties into other aspects of his personality. However, Greg doesn’t actually dislike plans. In fact, he enjoys Wirt’s plans. He just struggles to make his own, so he relies on Wirt for that.

Si:

“Cause you’re not saying any details, so it’s hard for me to–”

Greg’s Si comes out in a couple of different ways. His Ne creative bursts tend to have a detailed nature about them, which is why he so easily comes up with lyrics for songs. He also enjoys random facts or “trivia” in a sense, although they are mostly made up by him. Greg also has an appreciation for details, which is demonstrated when he tells Wirt that he isn’t giving him enough detail.

Greg’s Si is inferior, though, which is why he struggles with consistency and constantly gets sidetracked. He may enjoy Wirt’s plans, but he certainly can’t stick to them. In addition, when asked to perform random tasks by the Beast, Greg keeps bringing back items that are vaguely similar to what the Beast asked for, but are nowhere near exact, concrete matches. For instance, Greg translates “Golden Comb” into “honeycomb”, and brings that item back.